State receives $127M grant for FlexRoad project
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INDIANAPOLIS - The Indiana Department of Transportation has received a $127 million grant from the National Infrastructure Project Assistance program to support a major interstate project in northwest Indiana, Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office announced Monday.
The funding will support more than half of the cost of the I-80/I-94 FlexRoad project, which aims to make improvements to a 12-mile stretch of the interstate, known as the Borman Expressway.
The $212.5 million project involves identifying Traffic System Management and Operations strategies designed to improve travel times, increase reliability, enhance safety and reduce carbon emissions along the corridor, which runs from I-65 in Gary west to the IL 394 interchange in Cook County, Illinois.
INDOT Commissioner Mike Smith says the Borman Expressway is the busiest interstate corridor in Indiana with more than 200,000 vehicles traveling across per day.
“Existing traffic volumes are forecast to increase nearly 20 percent by 2040, exacerbating already high levels of congestion and traffic incidents,” Smiths aid in a news release. “FlexRoad allows INDOT to optimize traffic flow and improve safety while minimizing impacts to nearby communities.”
The FlexRoad project is currently in the environmental and preliminary design phase. A Planning and Environmental Linkage study was released in the spring of 2022 that identified four alternatives for further analysis.
Each alternative identified four main strategies that could be implemented to improve the corridor: dynamic shoulder lanes, event management, improved signage and interchange improvements.
Other options include ramp metering, variable speeds, dynamic lane control, and queue warning. You can learn more about each alternative by clicking here.
The governor’s office says INDOT is expected to let the project out to contractors in the fall of 2025 with construction slated to begin in 2026.
The National Infrastructure Project Assistance program, also known as Mega, was created as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support “large, complex projects that are likely to generate national or regional economic, mobility or safety benefits.”